Scantronic 9448 alarm problem

[electroman68]

Hi there,

I recently had some work carried out which required the electricity being switched off. This set the alarm off and the external sounder was sounding too. Once the alarm had been reset and the main power had been reestablished, the alarm failed to work.

Basically, the green power led is illuminated on the control panel and the unit beeps when keys are pressed but there are no other LEDs illuminated.

The alarm is around 15 years old so I have ordered new backup batteries for the control panel and external sounder, as I expect the existing batteries are past their best. I actually verified this by load testing one of the batteries and it discharged very rapidly, in around 3 minutes with a 180mA load.

My question is, could the dodgy battery be the reason why the alarm is no longer working, even though mains power is now present? Is there a possibility that unit has somehow reset to factory defaults?

Any tips or advice would be most helpful.

Thanks,
Rob.

 

[sparkymarka]

yes yes and yes. have you totally down powered system battery and mains ? try this first default code is 1234 for user.

 

[electroman68]

Hi Sparkymarka,

Many thanks for your reply.

I have removed the fuse from the spur along with the batteries, so unit completely powered down at the moment.

Thanks for the tip, I will try the 1234 code and see what happens. I have installation manual so can completely reprogram it if necessary anyway.

Just one question, when powering up should I connect battery or mains first? Should both mains 'and' battery be connected prior to trying the 1234 code?

Thanks,
Rob.

 

[TheAlarmMan]

If you power up the system without the battery/external siren connected it should behave as a normal, albeit that you'll get the green AC led flashing.

When you power up the system, it should go into tamper causing the internal speaker to sound, typing in the user code or default code should silence, you should then be able to enter engineer mode to test.

If the panel is still unresponsive, you could try defaulting it as the programming could be corrupt, or simply the unit has died.

 

[electroman68]

Thanks AlarmMan. I will try and reset to factory defaults if necessary and see what happens. From experience with other digital circuits, mains spikes can corrupt the EPROM and other memory so this could be what's happened. Possibly switching off mains supply and turning on again has spiked it.

With this particular panel, if just the power led is illuminated then does this indicate that panel is already restored to factory defaults and is awaiting programming?

Before removing control panel battery the external strobe was flashing every few seconds or so, which I assume is because the external alarm had been triggered when mains power was removed and had timed out after the set 20 minute period, leaving just the strobe flashing.

I understand that these panels are not very expensive should the need arise to replace it? I will check it over thoroughly first though and will also check the two fuses on the pcb. If these are ok is there anything else I should check?

Thanks,
Rob.

 

[electroman68]

Also, if I am in engineer's mode, does this mean that I can disconnect and replace the external bell box battery without setting the alarm off?

Thanks,
Rob.

 

[TheAlarmMan]

Whilst in engineer mode all tampers and faults are "ignored" and therefore won't trip the alarm.

On the 9448 the Green AC led just denotes whether mains power is present.
ON = Mains present.
Flashing = Using Battery
OFF = No Mains or battery

The red day LED, below the power light denotes whether the unit is,
ON = Day mode
OFF = either system is set or if was unset and engineer code entered is in eng mode.

The only way to tell if system is defaulted is if the eng code is default and used to be something else then yes it's defaulted.

There are many things that could be wrong, but testing voltages etc is a good start.

I'm sure I read you have the manual, read it front to back to ensure you understand the system.

 

[electroman68]

Hi Everyone!

I'm just letting you know that I replaced the battery, reset the panel to factory defaults, and reprogrammed system and it is now working fine again. It looks as though the programming may have been corrupted somehow when the mains power was shut off and switched back on again.

Many thanks to everyone for your help.

Rob.